The Midwestern United States, or the Midwest, is one of the four geographic regions defined by the United States Census Bureau, occupying the northern central part of the country.[1] It was officially named the North Central region by the Census Bureau until 1984.[2]

The term Midwestern has been in use since the 1880s to refer to portions of the central U.S.[4] A variant term, Middle West, has been used since the 19th century and remains relatively common.[5][6] Another term sometimes applied to the same general region is the heartland.[7] Other designations for the region have fallen out of use, such as the Northwest or Old Northwest (from "Northwest Territory") and Mid-America.

Economically the region is balanced between heavy industry and agriculture, with finance and services such as medicine and education becoming increasingly important. Its central location makes it a transportation crossroads for river boats, railroads, autos, trucks and airplanes. Politically the region swings back and forth between the parties, and thus is heavily contested and often decisive in elections.[8][9]

For decades after the sociological study by Robert Lynd and Helen Lynd Middletown appeared in 1929, commentators used Midwestern cities (and the Midwest generally) as "typical" of the nation. Middletown was Muncie, Indiana.[10] The region has a higher employment-to-population ratio (the percentage of employed people at least 16 years old) than the Northeast, the West, the South, or the Sun Belt states as of 2011[update].[11]

The Council of State Governments, an organization for communication and coordination among state governments, includes in its Midwest regional office 11 states from the above list, omitting Missouri, which is in the CSG South region.[13]

The vast central area of the U.S., into Canada, is a landscape of low, flat to rolling terrain in the Interior Plains. Most of its eastern two-thirds form the Interior Lowlands. The Lowlands gradually rise westward, from a line passing through eastern Kansas, up to 5,000+ feet in the unit known as the Great Plains. Most of the Great Plains area is now farmed.[14]

While these states are for the most part relatively flat, consisting either of plains or of rolling and small hills, there is a measure of geographical variation. In particular, the eastern Midwest near the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains; the Great Lakes Basin; the Ozark Mountains of southern Missouri; the rugged topography of Southern Indiana and far Southern Illinois; and the Driftless Area of northwestern Illinois, southwestern Wisconsin, southeastern Minnesota, and northeastern Iowa exhibit a high degree of topographical variety.

Proceeding westward, the Appalachian Plateau topography gradually gives way to gently rolling hills and then (in central Ohio) to flat lands converted principally to farms and urban areas. This is the beginning of the vast Interior Plains of North America. As a result, prairies cover most of the Great Plains states. Iowa and much of Illinois lie within an area called the prairie peninsula, an eastward extension of prairies that borders conifer and mixed forests to the north, and hardwooddeciduous forests to the east and south.

Geographers subdivide the Interior Plains into the Interior Lowlands and the Great Plains on the basis of elevation. The Lowlands are mostly below 1,500 feet above sea level whereas the Great Plains to the west are higher, rising in Colorado to around 5,000 feet.

The Lowlands, then, are confined to parts of Minnesota, Iowa, Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, Tennessee, and Kentucky. Missouri and Arkansas have regions of Lowlands elevations but in the Ozarks (within the Interior Highlands) are higher. Those familiar with the topography of eastern Ohio may be confused by this; that region is hilly but its rocks are horizontal and are an extension of the Appalachian Plateau.

The Interior Plains are largely coincident with the vast Mississippi River Drainage System (other major components are the Missouri and Ohio Rivers). These rivers have for tens of millions of years been eroding downward into the mostly horizontal sedimentary rocks of Paleozoic, Mesozoic, and Cenozoic ages. The modern Mississippi River system has developed during the Pleistocene Epoch of the Cenozoic.

Rainfall decreases from east to west, resulting in different types of prairies, with the tallgrass prairie in the wetter eastern region, mixed-grass prairie in the central Great Plains, and shortgrass prairie towards the rain shadow of the Rockies. Today, these three prairie types largely correspond to the corn/soybean area, the wheat belt, and the western rangelands, respectively.

Although hardwood forests in the northern Midwest were clear-cut in the late 19th century, they were replaced by new growth. Ohio and Michigan's forests are still growing. The majority of the Midwest can now be categorized as urbanized areas or pastoral agricultural areas.

Following the Paleo-Indian period is the Archaic period (8,000 BC to 1,000 BC), the Woodland Tradition (1,000 BC to 100 AD), and the Mississippian Period (900 to 1500 AD). Archaeological evidence indicates that Mississippian culture traits probably began in the St. Louis, Missouri area and spread northwest along the Mississippi and Illinois rivers and entered the state along the Kankakee River system. It also spread northward into Indiana along the Wabash, Tippecanoe, and White Rivers.[15] Mississippian peoples in the Midwest were mostly farmers who followed the rich, flat floodplains of Midwestern rivers. They brought with them a well-developed agricultural complex based on three major crops—maize, beans, and squash. Maize, or corn, was the primary crop of Mississippian farmers. They gathered a wide variety of seeds, nuts, and berries, and fished and hunted for fowl to supplement their diets. With such an intensive form of agriculture, these culture supported large populations. The Mississippi period was characterized by a mound-building culture. The Mississippians suffered a tremendous population decline about 1400, coinciding with the global climate change of the Little Ice Age. Their culture effectively ended before 1492.[16]

Most are of the Algonquian language family. Some tribes—such as the Stockbridge-Munsee and the Brothertown—are also Algonkian-speaking tribes who relocated from the eastern seaboard to the Great Lakes region in the 19th century. The Oneida belong to the Iroquois language group and the Ho-Chunk of Wisconsin are one of the few Great Lakes tribes to speak a Siouan language.[17] American Indians in this area did not develop a written form of language.

In the 16th century, American Indians used projectiles and tools of stone, bone, and wood to hunt and farm. They made canoes for fishing. Most of them lived in oval or conical wigwams that could be easily moved away. Various tribes had different ways of living. The Ojibwas were primarily hunters and fishing was also important in the Ojibwas economy. Other tribes such as Sac, Fox, and Miami, both hunted and farmed..

They were oriented toward the open prairies where they engaged in communal hunts for buffalo (bison). In the northern forests, the Ottawas and Potawatomis separated into small family groups for hunting. The Winnebagos and Menominees used both hunting methods interchangeably and built up widespread trade networks extending as far west as the Rockies, north to the Great Lakes, south to the Gulf of Mexico, and east to the Atlantic Ocean.

The Hurons reckoned descent through the female line, while the others favored the patrilineal method. All tribes were governed under chiefdoms or complex chiefdoms. For example, Hurons were divided into matrilineal clans, each represented by a chief in the town council, where they met with a town chief on civic matters. But Chippewa people's social and political life was simpler than that of settled tribes.

The religious beliefs varied among tribes. Hurons believed in Yoscaha, a supernatural being who lived in the sky and was believed to have created the world and the Huron people. At death, Hurons thought the soul left the body to live in a village in the sky. Chippewas were a deeply religious people who believed in the Great Spirit. They worshiped the Great Spirit through all their seasonal activities and viewed religion as a private matter: each person's relation with his personal guardian spirit was part of his thinking every day of life. Ottawa and Potawatomi people had very similar religious beliefs to those of the Chippewas.[15]

The nomadic tribes of the Great Plains survived on hunting, some of their major hunts centered around deer and buffalo. Some tribes are described as part of the 'Buffalo Culture' (sometimes called, for the American Bison). Though the Plains Indians hunted other animals, such as elk or antelope, bison was their primary game food source. Bison flesh, hide and bones provided the chief source of raw materials for items that Plains Indians made, including food, cups, decorations, crafting tools, knives, and clothing. (See Bison hunting.)

The tribes followed the bison's seasonal grazing and migration. The Plains Indians lived in teepees because they were easily disassembled and allowed the nomadic life of following game. When Spanishhorses were obtained, the Plains tribes rapidly integrated them into their daily lives. By the early 18th century, many tribes had fully adopted a horse culture. Before their adoption of guns, the Plains Indians hunted with spears, bows, and bows and arrows, and various forms of clubs. The use of horses by the Plains Indians made hunting (and warfare) much easier.[18]

Among the most powerful and dominant tribes were the Dakota or Sioux, who occupied large amounts of territory in the Great Plains of the Midwest. The area of the Great Sioux Nation spread throughout the South and Midwest, up into the areas of Minnesota and stretching out west into the Rocky Mountains. At the same time, they occupied the heart of prime buffalo range, and also an excellent region for furs they could sell to French and American traders for goods such as guns. The Sioux (Dakota) became the most powerful of the Plains tribes and the greatest threat to American expansion.[19][20]

The Sioux comprise three major divisions based on Siouan dialect and subculture:

Isáŋyathi or Isáŋathi ("Knife"): residing in the extreme east of the Dakotas, Minnesota and northern Iowa, and are often referred to as the Santee or Eastern Dakota.

Iháŋktȟuŋwaŋ and Iháŋktȟuŋwaŋna ("Village-at-the-end" and "little village-at-the-end"): residing in the Minnesota River area, they are considered the middle Sioux, and are often referred to as the Yankton and the Yanktonai, or, collectively, as the Wičhíyena (endonym) or the Western Dakota (and have been erroneously classified as Nakota[21]).

Thítȟuŋwaŋ or Teton (uncertain) : the westernmost Sioux, known for their hunting and warrior culture, are often referred to as the Lakota.

Today, the Sioux maintain many separate tribal governments scattered across several reservations, communities, and reserves in the Dakotas, Nebraska, Minnesota, and Montana in the United States; and Manitoba and southern Saskatchewan in Canada.

In 1673, the governor of New France sent Jacques Marquette, a Catholic priest and missionary, and Louis Jolliet, a fur trader to map the way to the Northwest Passage to the Pacific. They traveled through Michigan's upper peninsula to the northern tip of Lake Michigan. On canoes, they crossed the massive lake and landed at present-day Green Bay, Wisconsin. They entered the Mississippi River on June 17, 1673.[23]

Marquette and Jolliet soon realized that the Mississippi could not possibly be the Northwest Passage because it flowed south. Nevertheless, the journey continued. They recorded much of the wildlife they encountered. They turned around at the junction of the Mississippi River and Arkansas River and headed back.

Marquette and Jolliet were the first to map the northern portion of the Mississippi River. They confirmed that it was easy to travel from the St. Lawrence River through the Great Lakes all the way to the Gulf of Mexico by water, that the native peoples who lived along the route were generally friendly, and that the natural resources of the lands in between were extraordinary. New France officials led by LaSalle followed up and erected a 4,000-mile network of fur trading posts.[24]

At the end of the American Revolution there were few if any American settlers in the Midwest. However the U.S. gained possession of the entire Midwest east of the Mississippi, and pioneers headed to Ohio, where large tracks had been awarded to war veterans.

Beaver hunting grounds, the basis of the fur trade.

While French control ended in 1763 after their defeat by Britain and Spain, most of the several hundred French settlers in small villages along the Mississippi River and its tributaries remained and were not disturbed by the new British government. Spain in 1763 gained the area west of the Mississippi; St. Louis and Ste. Genevieve in Missouri were the main towns, but there was little new settlement. Spain was forced to give it all to France in 1800. Napoleon realized he could not defend it from Britain, so he sold it to the United States in the Louisiana Purchase of 1803. Meanwhile the British maintained forts and trading posts in U.S. territory, not giving them up until the mid-1790s by the Jay Treaty.

American settlement began either via routes over the Appalachian Mountains or through the waterways of the Great Lakes. Fort Pitt (now Pittsburgh) at the source of the Ohio River became the main base for settlers moving into the Midwest. Marietta, Ohio in 1787 became the first settlement in Ohio, but not until the defeat of Indian tribes at the Battle of Fallen Timbers in 1794 was large-scale settlement possible. Large numbers also came north from Kentucky into southern Ohio, Indiana and Illinois.[25]

The region's fertile soil produced corn and vegetables; most farmers were self-sufficient. They cut trees and claimed the land, then sold it to newcomers and then moved further west to repeat the process.

In 1803, President Thomas Jefferson commissioned the Lewis and Clark expedition that took place between May 1804 and September 1806. The goal was to explore the Louisiana Purchase, and establish trade and U.S. sovereignty over the native peoples along the Missouri River. The Lewis and Clark Expedition established relations with more than two dozen indigenous nations west of the Missouri River.[26] The Expedition returned east to St. Louis in the spring of 1806.

The British had a long-standing goal of building a "neutral" but pro-British Indian buffer state in the American Midwest.[30][31] They demanded a neutral Indian state at the peace conference that ended the War of 1812 but failed to gain any of it because they had lost control of the region in the Battle of Lake Erie and the Battle of the Thames in 1813, where Tecumseh was killed. The British then abandoned the Indians south of the lakes. The Indians were major losers in the War of 1812. Apart from the short Black Hawk War of 1832, the days of Indian warfare east of the Mississippi River had ended.

Yankee settlers from New England started arriving in Ohio Before 1800, and spread throughout the northern half of the Midwest. Most of them started as farmers, but the larger proportion moved to towns and cities as entrepreneurs, businessmen and professionals. They built Chicago in the 1830s and dominated the metropolis for nearly a century.[32]

Historian John Bunker has examined the worldview of the Yankee settlers in the Midwest:

Because they arrived first and had a strong sense of community and mission, Yankees were able to transplant New England institutions, values, and mores, altered only by the conditions of frontier life. They established a public culture that emphasized the work ethic, the sanctity of private property, individual responsibility, faith in residential and social mobility, practicality, piety, public order and decorum, reverence for public education, activists, honest, and frugal government, town meeting democracy, and he believed that there was a public interest that transcends particular and stick ambitions. Regarding themselves as the elect and just in a world rife with sin, air, and corruption, they felt a strong moral obligation to define and enforce standards of community and personal behavior....This pietistic worldview was substantially shared by British, Scandinavian, Swiss, English-Canadian and Dutch Reformed immigrants, as well as by German Protestants and many of the Forty-Eighters.[33]

Midwestern politics pitted Yankees against the German Catholics and Lutherans, who were often led by the Irish Catholics. These large groups, Buenker argues:

Generally subscribed to the work ethic, a strong sense of community, and activist government but were less committed to economic individualism and privatism and ferociously opposed to government supervision of the personal habits. Southern and eastern European immigrants generally leaned more toward the Germanic view of things, while modernization, industrialization, and urbanization modified nearly everyone's sense of individual economic responsibility and put a premium on organization, political involvement, and education.[34][35]

Two waterways have been important to the development of the Midwest. The first and foremost was the Ohio River, which flowed into the Mississippi River. Development of the region was halted until 1795 due to Spain's control of the southern part of the Mississippi and its refusal to allow the shipment of American crops down the river and into the Atlantic Ocean.

Inland canals in Ohio and Indiana constituted another important waterway, which connected with Great Lakes and Ohio River traffic. The commodities that the Midwest funneled into the Erie Canal down the Ohio River contributed to the wealth of New York City, which overtook Boston and Philadelphia.

During the mid-19th century, the region got its first railroads, and the railroad junction in Chicago became the world's largest. Even today, a century after Henry Ford, six Class I railroads meet in Chicago.

In the period from 1890 to 1930 many Midwestern cities were connected by electric interurban railroads, similar to streetcars. The Midwest had more interurbans than any other region. In 1916, Ohio led all states with 2,798 miles (4,503 km), Indiana followed with 1,825 miles (2,937 km). These two states alone had almost a third of the country's interurban trackage.[36] The nation's largest interurban junction was in Indianapolis. During the 1900s (decade) the city's 38% growth in population was attributed largely to the interurban.[37]

Competition with automobiles and buses undermined the interurban and other railroad passenger business. By 1900 Detroit was the world center of the auto industry, and soon practically every city within 200 miles was producing auto parts that fed into its giant factories.[38]

The Midwest, particularly Ohio, provided the primary routes for the Underground Railroad, whereby Midwesterners assisted slaves to freedom from their crossing of the Ohio River through their departure on Lake Erie to Canada. Created in the early 19th century, the Underground Railroad was at its height between 1850 and 1860. One estimate suggests that by 1850, 100,000 slaves had escaped via the Underground Railroad.[39]

The Underground Railroad consisted of meeting points, secret routes, transportation, and safe houses and assistance provided by abolitionist sympathizers. Individuals were often organized in small, independent groups; this helped to maintain secrecy because individuals knew some connecting "stations" along the route but knew few details of their immediate area. Escaped slaves would move north along the route from one way station to the next. Although the fugitives sometimes traveled on boat or train, they usually traveled on foot or by wagon.[40]

Setting in motion the events later known as "Bleeding Kansas" was the Kansas-Nebraska Act. The Act created the territories of Kansas and Nebraska, opened new lands that would help settlement in them, repealed the Missouri Compromise, and allowed settlers in those territories to determine through popular sovereignty whether to allow slavery within their boundaries. It was hoped the Act would ease relations between the North and the South, because the South could expand slavery to new territories but the North still had the right to abolish slavery in its states. Instead, opponents denounced the law as a concession to the slave power of the South.

The new Republican Party, born in the Midwest (Ripon, Wisconsin, 1854) and created in opposition to the Act, aimed to stop the expansion of slavery and soon emerged as the dominant force throughout the North.[41]

An ostensibly democratic idea, popular sovereignty stated that the inhabitants of each territory or state should decide whether it would be a free or slave state; however, this resulted in immigration en masse to Kansas by activists from both sides. At one point, Kansas had two separate governments, each with its own constitution, although only one was federally recognized. On January 29, 1861, Kansas was admitted to the Union as a free state, less than three months before the Battle of Fort Sumter officially began the Civil War.[42]

The so-called "Border War" lasted for another four months, from May through October, between armed bands of pro‐slavery and Free Soil men. The U.S. Army had two garrisons in Kansas, the First Cavalry Regiment at Fort Leavenworth and the Second Dragoons and Sixth Infantry at Fort Riley.[44] The skirmishes endured until a new governor, John W. Geary, managed to prevail upon the Missourians to return home in late 1856. A fragile peace followed, but violent outbreaks continued intermittently for several more years.

National reaction to the events in Kansas demonstrated how deeply divided the country had become. The Border Ruffians were widely applauded in the South, even though their actions had cost the lives of numerous people. In the North, the murders committed by Brown and his followers were ignored by most and lauded by a few.[45]

The civil conflict in Kansas was a product of the political fight over slavery. Federal troops were not used to decide a political question, but they were used by successive territorial governors to pacify the territory so that the political question of slavery in Kansas could finally be decided by peaceful, legal, and political means.

An animation depicting when United States territories and states forbade or allowed slavery, 1789–1861.

The U.S. federal government was supported by 20 mostly-Northern free states in which slavery already had been abolished, and by five slave states that became known as the border states. All of the Midwestern states but one, Missouri, banned slavery. Though most battles were fought in the South, skirmishes between Kansas and Missouri continued until culmination with the Lawrence Massacre on August 21, 1863. Also known as Quantrill's Raid, the massacre was a rebel guerrilla attack by Quantrill's Raiders, led by William Clarke Quantrill, on pro-Union Lawrence, Kansas. Quantrill's band of 448 Missouri guerrillas raided and plundered Lawrence, killing more than 150 and burning all the business buildings and most of the dwellings. Pursued by federal troops, the band escaped to Missouri.[47]

Lawrence was targeted due to the town's long support of abolition and its reputation as a center for Redlegs and Jayhawkers, which were free-state militia and vigilante groups known for attacking and families in Missouri's pro-slavery western counties.

In the 20th century, African American migration from the Southern United States into the Midwestern states changed Chicago, St. Louis, Cleveland, Milwaukee, Kansas City, Cincinnati, Detroit, Omaha, Minneapolis and many other cities in the Midwest, as factories and schools enticed families by the thousands to new opportunities. Chicago alone gained hundreds of thousands of black citizens from the Great Migration and the Second Great Migration.

As the Midwest opened up to settlement via waterways and rail in the mid 1800s, Germans began to settle there in large numbers. The largest flow of German immigration to America occurred between 1820 and World War I, during which time nearly six million Germans immigrated to the United States. From 1840 to 1880, they were the largest group of immigrants.

A favorite destination was Milwaukee, known as "the German Athens". Radical Germans trained in politics in the old country dominated the city's Socialists. Skilled workers dominated many crafts, while entrepreneurs created the brewing industry; the most famous brands included Pabst, Schlitz, Miller, and Blatz.[53]

While half of German immigrants settled in cities, the other half established farms in the Midwest. From Ohio to the Plains states, a heavy presence persists in rural areas into the 21st century.[54][55][56]

Throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, German Americans showed a high interest in becoming farmers, and keeping their children and grandchildren on the land. Western railroads, with large land grants available to attract farmers, set up agencies in Hamburg and other German cities, promising cheap transportation, and sales of farmland on easy terms. For example, the Santa Fe railroad hired its own commissioner for immigration, and sold over 300,000 acres (1,200 km2) to German-speaking farmers.[57]

The term West was applied to the region in the early years of the country. In 1789, the Northwest Ordinance was enacted, creating the Northwest Territory, which was bounded by the Great Lakes and the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers. Because the Northwest Territory lay between the East Coast and the then-far-West, the states carved out of it were called the Northwest. In the early 19th century, anything west of the Mississippi River was considered the West. The first recorded use of the term Midwestern to refer to a region of the central U.S. occurred in 1886, Midwest appeared in 1894, and Midwesterner in 1916.[4]

Following the settlement of the western prairie, some considered the row of states from North Dakota to Kansas to be part of the Midwest.[58]

The states of the "old Northwest" are now called the "East North Central States" by the United States Census Bureau and the "Great Lakes region" is also a popular term. The states just west of the Mississippi River and the Great Plains states are called the "West North Central States" by the Census Bureau. In some definitions, states such as Colorado, Wyoming, and Montana may be defined under Midwest as well. However, this definition is not in widespread use as those states are generally considered too far west to fall under the term "Midwest" as it is known.[59]

Some entities in the Midwest are still referred to as "Northwest" due to historical reasons, for example, Northwestern University in Illinois.

Agriculture is one of the biggest drivers of local economies in the Midwest, accounting for billions of dollars worth of exports and thousands of jobs. The area has some of the richest farming land in the world[61] and is known for its corn and cattle. The extended area also includes soybean and wheat fields, particularly west of the Missouri River. In 2012, Missouri was 9th nationally for cotton production and 4th in rice. Burley tobacco is cultivated and "air cured" along the central and western Missouri River.[62]

The very dense soil of the Midwest plagued the first settlers who were using wooden plows, which were more suitable for loose forest soil. On the prairie, the plows bounced around and the soil stuck to them. This problem was solved in 1837 by an Illinoisblacksmith named John Deere who developed a steel moldboard plow that was stronger and cut the roots, making the fertile soils of the prairie ready for farming.

The tallgrass prairie has been converted into one of the most intensive crop producing areas in North America. Less than one tenth of one percent (<0.09%) of the original landcover of the tallgrass prairie biome remains.[63] States formerly with landcover in native tallgrass prairie such as Iowa, Illinois, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Nebraska, and Missouri have become valued for their highly productive soils and are included in the Corn Belt. As an example of this land use intensity, Illinois and Iowa rank 49th and 50th out of 50 states in total uncultivated land remaining.

The region's fertile soil combined with the steel plow has made it possible for farmers to produce abundant harvests of cereal crops, such as corn, wheat, and oats. The region was soon known as the nation's "breadbasket."[64]

Judaism is practiced by 2.5% and Islam is practiced by 1% or less of the population, with higher concentrations in major urban areas. People with no religious affiliation make up 13–16% of the Midwest's population. Surveys show 54% of Midwesterners regularly attend church.[70]

In the 1970s and 1980s, native Midwestern musicians such as John Mellencamp and Bob Seger found great success with a style of rock music that came to be known as heartland rock, which were characterized by lyrical themes that focused on and appealed to the Midwestern working class. Other successful Midwestern rock artists emerged during this time, including REO Speedwagon, Styx, and Kansas.

In the 1990s, the Chicago-based band The Smashing Pumpkins emerged and went on to become one of the most successful alternative rock artists of the decade. Also in the 1990s, the Midwest was at the center of the emerging emo movement, with bands like The Get Up Kids (Kansas), Cursive (Nebraska) and Cap'n Jazz (Illinois) blending earlier hardcore punk sounds with a more melodic indie rock sentiment. This hybrid of styles came to be known as Midwest emo. Chicago-based artists Fall Out Boy and Plain White T's popularized the genre in the early part of the 21st Century.

In the late 1990s, Eminem and Kid Rock emerged from the Detroit area. Eminem went on to become one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed rappers of all time. Meanwhile, Kid Rock successfully mixed elements of rap, hard rock, heavy metal, country rock, and pop in forming his own unique sound. Both artists are known for celebrating their Detroit roots.

Differences in the definition of the Midwest mainly split between the Heartland and the Great Plains on one side, and the Great Lakes and the Rust Belt on the other. While some point to the small towns and agricultural communities in Kansas, Iowa, the Dakotas, and Nebraska of the Great Plains as representative of traditional Midwestern lifestyles and values, others assert that the Rust Belt cities of the Great Lakes—with their histories of 19th- and early-20th-century immigration, manufacturing base, and strong Catholic influence—are more representative of the Midwestern experience. In South Dakota, for instance, West River (the region west of the Missouri River) shares cultural elements with the western United States, while East River has more in common with the rest of the Midwest.[79]

Two other regions, Appalachia and the Ozark Mountains, overlap geographically with the Midwest—Appalachia in Southern Ohio and the Ozarks in Southern Missouri. The Ohio River has long been a boundary between North and South and between the Midwest and the Upper South. All of the lower Midwestern states, especially Missouri, have a major Southern component, and Missouri was a slave state before the Civil War.

Kentucky is rarely considered part of the Midwest, although it can be grouped with it in some contexts.[81] It is categorized as Southern by the Census Bureau and is usually classified as such, especially from a cultural standpoint.[82][83]

The accents of the region are generally distinct from those of the South and of the urban areas of the American Northeast. To a lesser degree, they are also distinct from the accent of the American West.

The accent characteristic of most of the Midwest is considered by many to be that of "standard" American English or General American. This accent is preferred by many national radio and television broadcasters.[84]

Missouri has elements of three dialects, specifically: Northern Midland, in the extreme northern part of the state, with a distinctive variation in St. Louis and the surrounding area; Southern Midland, in the majority of the state; and Southern, in the southwestern and southeastern parts of the state, with a bulge extending north in the central part, to include approximately the southern one-third.[86]

The Midwest has been an important region in national elections, with highly contested elections in closely divided states often deciding the national result. In 1860–1920, both parties often selected either their president or vice president from the region.[88]

The first local meeting of the new Republican Party took place here in Ripon, Wisconsin on March 20, 1854

One of the two major political parties in the United States, the Republican Party, originated in the Midwest in the 1850s; Ripon, Wisconsin had the first local meeting while Jackson, Michigan had the state county meeting of the new party. Its membership included many Yankees who had settled the upper Midwest. The party opposed the expansion of slavery and stressed the Protestant ideals of thrift, a hard work ethic, self-reliance, democratic decision making, and religious tolerance.[89]

In the early 1890s the wheat-growing regions were strongholds of the short-lived Populist movement in the Plains states.[90]

Starting in the 1890s the middle class urban Progressive movement became influential in the region (as it was in other regions), with Wisconsin a major center. Under the LaFolletes Wisconsin fought against the GOP bosses and for efficiency, modernization, and the use of experts to solve social, economic, and political problems. Theodore Roosevelt's 1912 Progressive Party had the best showing in this region; carrying the states of Michigan, Minnesota, and South Dakota. In 1924 La Follette, Sr.'s 1924 Progressive Party did well in the region but only carried his home base of Wisconsin.

The region is now home to many critical swing states that do not have strong allegiance to either the Democratic or Republican party. Upper Midwestern states, such as Illinois, Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Michigan tend to vote Democratic, but the 2010 elections proved they can sometimes swing to either party. Indiana is usually considered a Republican stronghold, however in 2008 the state voted for a Democratic presidential candidate, Barack Obama, for the first time in 44 years.

As a result of the 2010 elections, Republicans now control the governors' office in nine of the twelve Midwestern states, leaving only Illinois, Minnesota, and Missouri in Democratic hands. Republicans also control every partisan state legislature in the Midwest, except Illinois, Minnesota and the Iowa Senate. (The unicameral Nebraska Legislature is officially nonpartisan.)

The state government of Illinois is currently dominated by the Democratic Party. The state currently has one Republican senator, one Democratic senator, and an 12-6 Democratic majority House delegation. Illinois voters have preferred the Democratic presidential candidate by a significantly large margin in the past six elections (1992, 1996, 2000, 2004, 2008, 2012).

Many analysts consider Iowa the most evenly divided state in the country, but it has leaned Democratic for at least the past fifteen years. Iowa had a Democratic governor from 1999 until Terry Branstad was re-elected in the mid-term elections in 2010, has had both one Democratic and one Republican senator since the early 1980s, currently has evenly split (2-2) House delegation, and has voted for the Democratic presidential candidate in five out of the last six elections, (1992, 1996, 2000, 2008, 2012). As a result of the 2010 elections, Republicans hold a slight majority in the Iowa House of Representatives (53-47), while Democrats hold a majority in the Iowa Senate.

Minnesota voters have chosen the Democratic candidate for president longer than any other state, having not voted Republican since 1972. Minnesota was the only U.S. state (along with Washington, D.C.) to vote for its native son Walter Mondale over Ronald Reagan in 1984. In Iowa and Minnesota, however, the recent Democratic victories have often been fairly narrow. Minnesota has elected and re-elected a Republican governor, as well as supported some of the strongest gun concealment laws in the nation. Republicans held control of both houses of the Minnesota state legislature from 2011 to 2013.

Consistently, Ohio is a battleground state in presidential elections. No Republican has won the office without winning Ohio. This trend has contributed to Ohio's reputation as a quintessential swing state. At the state level, however, Republicans are currently dominant. With the exception of one justice of the Supreme Court of Ohio, all political offices open to statewide election are held by Republicans. Republicans have a majority in the Ohio House of Representatives and a supermajority in the Ohio Senate. At the federal level Ohio has one Democratic and one Republican U.S. Senator. As a result of the 2012 elections, 12 of Ohio's 16 members of the U.S. House of Representatives are Republicans.

The Great Plains states of North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, and Kansas have been strongholds for the Republicans for many decades. These four states have gone for the Republican candidate in every presidential election since 1940, except for Lyndon B. Johnson's landslide over Barry Goldwater in 1964. Although North Dakota and South Dakota have often elected Democrats to Congress, after the 2012 election both states' congressional delegations are majority Republican. Nebraska has elected Democrats to the Senate and as Governor in recent years, but the state's House delegation has been all-Republican since 1995 and both of its U.S. Senators are Republican. Kansas has elected a majority of Democrats as governor since 1956 but has not elected a Democrat to the Senate since 1932. Both of Kansas's U.S. Senators and all four of its U.S. House members are Republican.

Missouri was historically considered a "bellwether state" in presidential elections. Prior to 2008, Missouri had supported the winning candidate all but once since the beginning of the 20th century. Only three times since 1904 has the Show-Me-State not voted for the winner in a presidential election: in 1956, when the state voted for Democrat Adlai Stevenson; in 2008, when the state broke for Republican John McCain; and in 2012, when it broke for Republican Mitt Romney. Missouri's House delegation has generally been evenly divided between Democrats and Republicans, with the Democrats holding sway in the large cities at the opposite ends of the state, Kansas City and St. Louis (although the Kansas City suburbs are now trending Republican), and the Republicans controlling the rest of the state, save for a pocket of Democratic strength in Columbia, home to the University of Missouri. However, as a result of the 2012 elections, Republicans now have a 6–2 majority in the state's House delegation, with African-American Democrats representing the major cities. Missouri's Senate seats were mostly controlled by Democrats until the latter part of the 20th century, but the Republicans have held one or both Senate seats continuously since the 1976 elections.

The Midwestern states use primary election to select delegates to the national convention, except for Iowa. The Iowa caucuses in early January of leap years are the first votes in the presidential nominating process for both major parties. Party members gather in person in small groups to select delegates to higher level conventions which eventually choose delegates to the national convention. The caucuses gather enormous media attention, and are quickly followed by the first primary (in New Hampshire).[93]

Brown, David S. Beyond the Frontier: The Midwestern Voice in American Historical Writing (2009)

Lauck, Jon K. The Lost Region: Toward a Revival of Midwestern History (University of Iowa Press; 2013) 166 pages; criticizes the neglect of the Midwest in contemporary historiography and argues for a revival of attention